I am Sophie, a Swedish woman by birth but English by adoption. I have a little mud hotel in the beautiful and ancient West African town of Djenne, Mali. WWW.HOTELDJENNEDJENNO.COM Because of unstable political
situation, tourism has ground to a halt. Hotel still open! But hotel staff mainly working in Bogolan studio now: www.malimali.org check out our fab online shop!

Monday, July 08, 2013

Some 150 soldiers from the Malian Army entered Kidal at long
last on Friday. Malian TV showed happy crowds – some black, some Tuareg- welcoming
them and waving Malian flags. So far so good. But what happened next was not
shown and less encouraging- those that had demonstrated their support for the
Malian Army’s arrival were promptly attacked and certain among the black population
had to flee to safety at the Malian army camp, according to RFI (Radio France
Inter). It appears that the attacking was carried out by the MNLA's women and children who were throwing stones etc. The MNLA's soldiers are of course in 'containment' according to the Ouagadougou agreement.

At the same time, the MNLA are
refusing Colonel Gamou (above) entry into Kidal
with his men. Gamou is an exciting figure: (I am having a school girl crush on him...just look at that Gary Grant chin!) a famous Tuareg colonel who was part of the MNLA,
but who swapped sides and was integrated into the Malian army many years ago. Last year during the Islamist conquest of the
north, he was cut off and stranded in the middle of nowhere with his regiment
of badly armed Malian soldiers. When he realized that the opponent had far superior fire power he pretended to
swap sides again in order to save his troops, and for a moment everyone thought he was actually betraying
Mali and deserting. But no- he later escaped with his men and surfaced again in the
Niger, having saved the lives of his 500 troops. Gamou was with the Malian army contingent that successfully attacked Anefis recently, which prompted the emergency talks in Ouagadougou. The MNLA are not keen on him...